Conical processes

[czmkid]

How long would you say it takes you to get it down below 160-170 using that method? And secondly how do you compensate with your additions? Like if you wanted to make a really flavorful but not bitter pale ale that only used flameout hops? Is it possible? Cheers

I drop it as low as I can with a hydra immersion chiller which in the summer months...March thru October, usually only goes down to 85-84 ish with tap water. Then the glycol takes it to 65 from there quickly. The 2 hours is just to wait for any trub to fall but since I am filling the Ss unitank from the bottom up I don’t worry too much about randomness ending up in there. As far as going from 160 to pitching temps using glycol, I wouldn’t do that or advise anyone else with a glycol system to do so especially with 3-4 other tanks working let alone one. Wouldn’t want to stress out that compressor...especially with it outside on the back covered living space in 100 heat.

Sure you can make a flavorful non bitter pale ale, ipa, iipa no problem with whirlpool additions going into the conical and or tanks. You just have to be able to control temps a little in the kettle and then pinpoint in the fermenter with a high degree of accuracy.

Check out a Hoptomitrist clone from roughtail brewery on homebrewers association...I just brewed it for the first time its pretty amazing.

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/roughtail-brewing-co-hoptometrist-double-ipa/

Or....weather ground brewery’s iipa also found on homebrewers association. It goes as far at to tell the end user when to add the hop additions and for how long during the whirlpool a reverse boil hop addition!. Brewed this as well.....

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/weathered-ground-brewery-r-k-double-ipa/

 

[Blazinlow86]

I drop it as low as I can with a hydra immersion chiller which in the summer months...March thru October, usually only goes down to 85-84 ish with tap water. Then the glycol takes it to 65 from there quickly. The 2 hours is just to wait for any trub to fall but since I am filling the Ss unitank from the bottom up I don’t worry too much about randomness ending up in there. As far as going from 160 to pitching temps using glycol, I wouldn’t do that or advise anyone else with a glycol system to do so especially with 3-4 other tanks working let alone one. Wouldn’t want to stress out that compressor...especially with it outside on the back covered living space in 100 heat.

Sure you can make a flavorful non bitter pale ale, ipa, iipa no problem with whirlpool additions going into the conical and or tanks. You just have to be able to control temps a little in the kettle and then pinpoint in the fermenter with a high degree of accuracy.

Check out a Hoptomitrist clone from roughtail brewery on homebrewers association...I just brewed it for the first time its pretty amazing.

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/roughtail-brewing-co-hoptometrist-double-ipa/

Or....weather ground brewery’s iipa also found on homebrewers association. It goes as far at to tell the end user when to add the hop additions and for how long during the whirlpool a reverse boil hop addition!. Brewed this as well.....

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/weathered-ground-brewery-r-k-double-ipa/

Sorry to clarify I was talking about no chill brewing and hoppy stuff. I might have mistakenly asked you thinking you were doing no chill.

 

[Luis Mendieta]

So, before finding this thread I dumped yeast yesterday after 5 days of fermentation and with FG reached (apparently). While dumping the yeast I heard 1 heavy bubble going into the conical which probably went through the dump valve. Could that amount of air ruin a batch? its half bbl conical...

 

[mongoose33]

So, before finding this thread I dumped yeast yesterday after 5 days of fermentation and with FG reached (apparently). While dumping the yeast I heard 1 heavy bubble going into the conical which probably went through the dump valve. Could that amount of air ruin a batch? its half bbl conical...

It's not going to ruin it. How much effect it has depends on the type of beer. IPAs are notorious for the hop flavor/aroma oxidizing, which is why the usual prescription is to drink them fresh and drink them fast.

If it's a more malty beer, a single bubble isn't likely to be noticeable.

If you think about it, people have been brewing a long time without having perfect systems to avoid oxygen exposure after fermentation. And they've made beer, often great beer.

 

[Luis Mendieta]

It's not going to ruin it. How much effect it has depends on the type of beer. IPAs are notorious for the hop flavor/aroma oxidizing, which is why the usual prescription is to drink them fresh and drink them fast.

If it's a more malty beer, a single bubble isn't likely to be noticeable.

If you think about it, people have been brewing a long time without having perfect systems to avoid oxygen exposure after fermentation. And they've made beer, often great beer.

thanks mongoose33.... I will do my best to follow Papazian "Relax Dont Worry have a Homebrew"
I think I will implement better practices when handling my wort/beer to avoid any type of contamination such as purging with CO2 whenever I try to dump and dry hop my beers....

 

[mongoose33]

thanks mongoose33.... I will do my best to follow Papazian "Relax Dont Worry have a Homebrew"
I think I will implement better practices when handling my wort/beer to avoid any type of contamination such as purging with CO2 whenever I try to dump and dry hop my beers....

I've followed an approach of always trying to do it better. Sometimes it works well, sometimes not much. The name of the game is to reduce oxygen exposure post-fermentation as much as you can, recognizing you may not be able to be perfect.

If all you have is one bubble of air in your beer's headspace, I'd say that's pretty darned good.

*********

BTW, and not to burst your bubble (sorry ), but if you carb with bottled CO2, that CO2 is almost certainly not pure. It's probably 99.5% pure, which means the other 1/2 percent is....air? And air is....21 percent o2, correct?

When I can, I try to carb in my conical. I can get about 1.5 volumes just from self-carbonation, which means the remainder has to be from bottled CO2. But I've reduced the amount of O2 contamination from the CO2 into my beer by 60 percent doing it that way.

There are LODO brewers who will try to keg their beer when there is still 5 gravity points to go, so as the yeast finishes it carbs the beer with pure CO2. Basically the same as bottle conditioning, except in a keg, and in doing it that way any O2 is consumed by the yeast.

Heck, there are even LODO brewers who are focused on oxygen uptake through the liquid lines in their kegerators or keezers.

I'm not at that level.

 

[Luis Mendieta]

I've followed an approach of always trying to do it better. Sometimes it works well, sometimes not much. The name of the game is to reduce oxygen exposure post-fermentation as much as you can, recognizing you may not be able to be perfect.

If all you have is one bubble of air in your beer's headspace, I'd say that's pretty darned good.

*********

BTW, and not to burst your bubble (sorry ), but if you carb with bottled CO2, that CO2 is almost certainly not pure. It's probably 99.5% pure, which means the other 1/2 percent is....air? And air is....21 percent o2, correct?

When I can, I try to carb in my conical. I can get about 1.5 volumes just from self-carbonation, which means the remainder has to be from bottled CO2. But I've reduced the amount of O2 contamination from the CO2 into my beer by 60 percent doing it that way.

There are LODO brewers who will try to keg their beer when there is still 5 gravity points to go, so as the yeast finishes it carbs the beer with pure CO2. Basically the same as bottle conditioning, except in a keg, and in doing it that way any O2 is consumed by the yeast.

Heck, there are even LODO brewers who are focused on oxygen uptake through the liquid lines in their kegerators or keezers.

I'm not at that level.

I get your point... I made huge upgrade on my homebrew setup from classic BIAB to a 3-kettle system with half bbl conical fermenter and kegging... I am trying to improve batch by batch an step by step ( specially on the cold side) to get my homebrew to the highest quality possible.

 

[Luis Mendieta]

I get your point... I made huge upgrade on my homebrew setup from classic BIAB to a 3-kettle system with half bbl conical fermenter and kegging... I am trying to improve batch by batch an step by step ( specially on the cold side) to get my homebrew to the highest quality possible.

Anyway I know that whenever kegging the beer gets in contact with air so oxidation has already yet I am trying to minimize rookie mistakes on the process (although mastering craft beer it's not quite that possible).

 

[user 254557]

Anyone have a Catalyst I would like to add a sample port to mine but not sure which to get, I have also added a ball valve to the bottom so I can dump trub easier and cleaner, but using it............ just go straight from boil kettle to Catalyst, oxygenate, add yeast, monitor temp, dump trub after fermentation is over then dry hop as needed, then right into keg....thats the best part

 

[mongoose33]

I get your point... I made huge upgrade on my homebrew setup from classic BIAB to a 3-kettle system with half bbl conical fermenter and kegging... I am trying to improve batch by batch an step by step ( specially on the cold side) to get my homebrew to the highest quality possible.

I bought my conical last April; I switched to electric brewing in August/September. I'm still trying to get the system down, as I added a RIMS system for mash temp control as well as a SS counterflow chiller. I'm pumping stuff hither and yon, the mistakes are fewer and less serious.

Even so, I had two interesting mistakes in the batch I brewed Sunday. One was missing the dough-in temp in the mash tun. I preheated the mash tun to offset some of the cooling effect as I added the strike water...but too much. My initial mash temp was 159, which is too high (wanted 152). I got it cooled down, but my efficiency was less than normal by about 5 points.

Then when I was chilling the boiled wort, i thought I had the CF chiller getting me 70 degrees; usually I just recirculate until the BK is down to pitch temp then pump to the fermenter, but I figured since it was 70 and that was my pitch temp, just pump into the fermenter.

Well. Somehow that was a miscalculation, and the wort in my fermenter was 82 degrees. I pitched my starter into that 82-degree wort, and then figured it out. I chilled down to 70, hoping I didn't shock the yeast too much.

Must not have been too bad....I had bubbling 4 hours after pitch, and dropped to 1.015 after 96 hours. I'm sure it'll be good, just maybe not exactly what I was aiming for.

So...if you think you're the only one working through a learning curve, well, you're not.